Does it help your chances if you mention in one of your essays, that nobody has ever enrolled into the college that you are applying to?
For example, no one at my high school ever went to Yale.
Would this move you from the wait-list pile to the acceptance pile?
This is assuming that you have a solid application already.
I think the location/high school importance is way overblown on CC for most cases. I do not think it would help. I wouldn’t include it.
You’re a soph. See what shakes out a year from now.
It’s not your role to tell them you’re the first. They’ll know. And they’ll wonder why you feel it’s helpful to point out. And that’s not what the essay is for!.
How this first-up status plays will be 100% about how good your app/supp and match are- that’s far more than stats and a few titles. And how great any local competion is, other kids/other hs they have a track record with.
Dig into what your targets say and show they value and look for.
It will not move the needle on your application. You will get in or not on your own merits. Yale has no need to get a student from any particular HS. Keep in mind that Yale’s acceptance rate was under 7% this year so it must be considered to be a long-shot for any unhooked applicant.
It won’t do anything if it’s one specific school but it is important for your guidance counselor to mention in your school profile something along the lines of “Very few students from our school dare apply to Top 25 or Top 50 colleges”. if that’s not true (ie., kids from your school apply to Berkeley and UCLA all the time, they just never bother with the East Coast) then it can’t appear at all. If your school is lower performing and you’re one of the top students they’ve had in a long time, your guidance counselors needs to include it. But it shouldn’t come from you.
BTW, you cannot write (for instance) “no one here has ever applied to Yale” since your commonapp essay is common and thus will be read by Yale but also Williams, Pomona, and Emory… who won’t take it well.
The colleges already know that. No need to tell them.
They don’t care. Maybe if you came from some school in Northern Alaska that they thought would get you on Good Morning America, that may help. Just a normal school, nope.
I do not think you should mention it. If they care, they probably will track it in another way.